You're doing it, again. (Don''t leave us out here in the cold)

"When you get to these wars, I worry that America has paid us very well, the compensation's good (so the culture says) 'please go off and fight our dirty little wars and let us get on with our lives.' We need to figure a way to get America to buy in (those wars.)  Adm Mike Mullen, former Chief of Naval Operations

This country has, for long, had a love-hate relationship with its own armed forces.  It seems as though we in uniform are fine in our own way, as long as we don't get in your way.  The not-so-subtle message we get from civilians is, "If you want something more than just a "Support the Troops' bumper sticker, look elsewhere and don't bother us."

I recall that, when working at Best Buy (in effect, a huge chain of toy stores for adults,) customers would find out in the course of conversations that I was retired military.  They would dutifully thank me for my service, but then mention that they wanted their kids to go to a good college and get a high-paying job.  

So, military service was fine for some ... but the "better classes" couldn't be bothered.

Since the end of the Draft in the early 1970s, fewer and fewer Americans are volunteering to join the All-Volunteer Force of this nation's military services.  Fewer and fewer Americans are carrying the burdens of defense and freedom for everyone else.  A recent study published in the Veterans of Foreign Wars magazine showed that a huge percentage of Americans are just fine with that.  The study added that Americans believe we deserve to carry the added hardships of military service because, well ... we volunteered.

And you know what?  We were mostly OK with that.  We were, after all, volunteers and fiercely proud of that.  Besides, we were pretty well paid by the civilians so we could go and dirty our collective hands and the civilians wouldn't have to.

But then the Congressional bean counters began looking at defense and military peoples' lives as  commodities to be bought, sold and inventoried.

In an administration which requires all Americans to enlist ... er .... sign up for health care, the White House has said that it no longer can afford to fund military healthcare at pre-war levels.  That we long-term service people were promised lifelong care when we first volunteered to serve matters not one whit to politicians.  (After all, they've got their own healthcare system completely funded apart from the rest of us.)

The military services, whose equipment is worn out after ten years of continuous combat, are told that -- due to an artificially created sequestration -- they can't replace that equipment with new or even refurbished gear to a level sufficient to sustain the same level of operations, should they become necessary.  We're just going to have to make do.

At the beginning of the current operations in Iraq, Defense Secretary told soldiers they were going to have to continue digging through landfills for scrap metal to up-armor their Humvees against the murderous Improvised Explosive Devices.  "You go to war war with the army you have, not the army you might wish to have," he said.  Thousands of US Servicemen died or came home horribly wounded because the bean counters were too cheap to supply them with the arms and armor they needed to fight the war.

(Troops sent to Iraq without proper armor for their vehicles had to dig through landfills to find scraps to cobble together jury-rigged protection.)

Those of us of a certain age remember that, after the end of American involvement in Vietnam, one army (the South Vietnamese) was left in the field to wither and die, while another army (ours) was brought home to do the same thing.

Does anyone else see a theme forming here?  I urge all my civilian friends and colleagues:  Do NOT break faith with the armed forces you sent into Harm's Way.  If you truly value their service, stop tallying up nickels and dimes, and listen -- listen -- when they tell you what they need to fight the wars your elected officials start!.

Or else bring back the Draft, and nobody's kids will be "too good" to be sent in Harm's Way.